A Queer Account of the Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

31 December 2025

The Queer Account of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

This may be more journal than book review; just a word of forewarning. Also, I am publishing it here a week after its composition without additional review/revision; therefore, a double-forewarning.

About a month ago, there it was—a memory: me and my sister, ages perhaps seven and eight, piled with mom into her dark cherry four-poster bed with its lace canopy, listening to the very last (perhaps only?) book I ever recall mom reading to us. I could not remember the book’s name that day a month ago, but I did remember an image: wolves running through trees across a snowy landscape, as viewed by a child out a train (or perhaps carriage) window. Maybe the memory came to me because I’d just finished Maryanne Wolf’s Reader Come Home, where Wolf talks about the incredible importance of parents reading full-length novels to their children (the coincidence of Wolf’s name here is not lost on me). In any case, what I remember from that moment in mom’s bed more than anything was a feeling of being swept away into another world. And I loved it. There was also a little thrill of terror—which I also loved.

It did not take much hunting online to identify the book by reproducing in my own words this single scene/image, and when I did locate the book, its cover art copyrighted by Edward Gorey in 1962 and having never changed, recalled me immediately back to those nights in mom’s bed. I asked Brian to purchase me a copy as a Christmas gift, which he did, and I read the book the day after Christmas almost entirely in one sitting.

My immediate reaction was uncertainty regarding whether mom ever actually finished reading the book for us…as the only image that remained in my mind of the plot involved those wolves running alongside the train, which only happens within the first fifty pages. I have no recollection of anything from beyond that, although over the course of the story, England’s landscape shifts from the deepest dark of winter to the bright joy of summer. The literal wolves, the wild canines, by the second half of the book, have moved off north and are gone. This makes it clear that Aiken’s wolves are symbolic; the true wolves in this book are human (Slighcarp, Brisket, and the like).

This book is essentially a middle-grade primer to Gothic Romance, replete with ravenous wolves, heartless villains, vast and terrible landscapes, and Sir Willoughby’s home: a castle-like mansion on the English countryside riddled with hidden staircases and hallways, oubliettes, and dungeons. Aiken’s daughter confirms this by comparing it to Brontë and Dickens. Why should it ever surprise me, if this was the last story my mother read me aloud, that within the next few years I would haunt the region of my school’s library that held books on unsolved mysteries such as poltergeists, ghosts, and aliens, then move swiftly into chain-reading Stephen King novels by age 11?

The story is lovely. I recommend everyone with eyeballs and thumbs read it—and anyone without eyeballs and thumbs listen to it—no matter its intended audience is children. The story is bleak at times, but very real. The protagonists’ plights so often seem impossible until they must be—and are—broken down into minute actions and events. Essentially, it is an epic tale which plays out on small stages, day by day, moment by moment, so that a child might comprehend that minute elements contribute to something enormous. Read it. I’m not going to provide a summary of the text here. My mind is more occupied by another aspect of this reading experience…

Of course, in reading this story I was bought back to the child I had been at age seven or eight. At the time, my single mother was working full-time for the CIA. She often took long trips away from home (yes, like Sir Willoughby and his dear), sometimes leaving my sister and me with our aunt and uncle, sometimes with our neighbors, Bill and Mary Wells, and their daughters Kelly and Kate. Kate was our age—or perhaps more closely my sister’s age, about 18 months older than me—but Kelly was old enough to babysit us three whenever her parents were out of the home.

The Wells family lived in our townhouse complex, just up the street from us, but for some reason (perhaps because both of Kate’s parents were physicians) the Wells’s home was much nicer than ours: fresher, newer, brighter. Kate had wooden blinds—why does my mind want to call them plantation blinds?—in her bedroom. Her bathroom was decorated all over in yellow and aqua, with marine animals and seascapes. The family’s basement was more comfortably finished than our own with a low-pile grey carpet, giant pull-out couch, over twenty ticking and chiming wall clocks that Bill had refurbished, and an entertainment unit containing a TV and piles of VHS tapes. In her basement, Kate often shared with us their family’s collection of Alfred Hitchcock flicks, and once her parents went to bed, she’d put on Tales from the Crypt and we’d shiver together under a blanket.

Kate’s house was a little haven for me. Perhaps it was for my sister, too. Despite being a private school girl—or maybe because she was a private school girl—Kate was much worldlier than us, but also so free to be herself in ways that I could not be in my own home. She picked her nose and ate her boogers on purpose and made a tremendous to-do about it, smacking her lips like they were a delicacy. It was in her basement, most of the time, that we slept whenever mom was away, especially on weekends.

But Kate’s parents didn’t seem to like me. This wasn’t new: I had this impression from many of my friends’ parents. Liz Rasmussen’s mother once told my mother that I was not enjoyable to have around because I “only wanted to do whatever I wanted to do.” Looking back, I could not tell you what I did to prompt such an assessment from Mrs. Rasmussen. But Bill and Mary were kind enough—I was just a klutz, perhaps. Twice, over for dinner, I broke glasses straight out of their cupboards, about which I felt miserable.

One day, after I’d broken a glass while grabbing it out of the cupboard for my water with dinner, we were all eating tuna casserole at the Wells’s kitchen table. No. Rewind. The glass was broken. Another procured and filled with water. We were just sitting to the table and nothing yet had been served onto my plate. But the plate was so different from anything we had at our home. At home, our ceramic plates were off-white with a green (or yellow?) painted ring around the rim. At the center of the plates were a green-orange-yellow floral pattern of some sort. In fact, these, I know now, were a Pyrex design popular in the 70s; I often see them on sale while antique shopping. But mind you, this was probably 1987, so those plates were going out of style. It’s just that my single mother could not afford to replace them. Or perhaps she did not want to. The Wells’s plates were not circles. They were rounded squares, stark white with some sort of bold black geometric design across the center: modern, edgy, cool. Before any food could cover this plate’s design, I noted it and called it “queer.”

Immediately, as I said this word, Bill (Mr. Wells) sprung to his feet in a rage. Ok, ok. I was eight. It felt like this, but surely he calmly reprimanded me. However, in my somatic memory, he sprung to his feet in a rage and jabbed a finger in my face:

“Where did you learn that word?” he demanded. “Don’t ever, ever use that word again!”

I was mortified. Cowed. Especially after having just broken another one of their family’s water glasses. It was a word I knew by context, but I could not have explained how. I understood that it meant strange or different, and I did not understand why it might cause offense. Maybe he thought I was unkindly judging his plates—his taste? I can’t recall whether I cried. I don’t think so. I think I simply curled within myself and tried to remember how to taste tuna casserole.

I know now where that word came from.

I learned the word from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. In it, Aiken uses the word twice. I can’t go back and locate the first time she uses it, as this is a physical book and I am too lazy to scour each page—but here is the second instance of its usage:

“Look, Sylvia! Abednego Gripe, Attorney. Father’s man of business! Is not that a lucky chance!”

“Is it so lucky?” said Sylvia doubtfully, as they retraced their steps along the street. “I do not like the fact that Mr. Grimshaw has gone to see him. Why can he have done so, do you suppose?”

“No, you are right,” Bonnie answered thoughtfully. “It is very queer. At all events, we must not go to see Mr. Gripe while Mr. Grimshaw is there. We had best wait until we have seen Aunt Jane and asked her advice.” (144)

As you can see, in this context, the word signifies “strange” or “questionable.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Wells had a very different perception of the word’s usage—influenced by his awareness of politics and the news of the time, as it relates to gay rights. Funny how the term has now been reclaimed by that community. But over that dinner, in that moment, he did not explain to me why I should not use the word; he simply demanded that I not use it and left me in mute, confused ignorance. To this day, I find his handling of the situation unfair, and I’m still frustrated he could not see the value of explaining his reasoning.

Looking back at my childhood with adult eyes, I recognize myriad instances of the like, where adults, affronted by things I’d say, chided, punished, or dismissed me without explanation, leaving me feeling misunderstood, unheard, and confused. This sense carried on into adulthood, where I’ve committed the bulk of my time and energy to clarity and understanding (note my BA in Communication, MA in Literature, and MFA in Creative Writing). Ultimately, I cannot be too upset though, as this ongoing attempt to overexplain myself to avoid misunderstanding led to a writing career.

Le Sigh

Well. If you’ve stuck around this far, good on ya. I’m not sure how to conclude this review-slash-memory, except to say that we need to continue reading to our children, even as they grow out of picture books. Sitting with our children to read them chapter books, novels, is infinitely valuable on all fronts. But also, maybe, take the time to discuss the meanings of words—especially connotations—with them so that they’re not blindsided whenever they try to use those words in the real world. Hah.